The US attorney accused of hounding internet activist Aaron Swartz to his death has responded by saying that her office's actions were "appropriate", and that she had only been seeking a six-month sentence in "a low-security setting" rather than the 30 years' jail that his actions might have attracted.

The family of celebrated internet activist Aaron Swartz has accused prosecutors and MIT officials of being complicit in his death, blaming the apparent suicide on the pursuit of a young man over "an alleged crime that had no victims".

The Arizona immigration case follows the outlines of the case over the Affordable Care Act: both pit the administration against conservative state governments; both create crucibles for the forging of a new definition of "activist judges"; and in debates over both policies, conservatives have used economic fears to stack the deck in what is really an argument about civil rights. Justice Antonin Scalia reliably withering dissent from Monday's ruling on the SB1070 law begins its conclusion with just such a feint:

Two female US politicians were banned from addressing the Michigan house of representatives after one used the word "vagina" and the other tried to argue for regulating vasectomies during a debate over a controversial anti-abortion bill.

In his first campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama promised to reverse the worst excesses of the Bush administration's approach to terrorism – such as the use of torture, the rendition of terrorist suspects to CIA-run black sites around the globe, and the denial of basic legal rights to prisoners in Guantánamo – and to develop a counterterrorism policy that was consistent with the legal and moral tradition of the United States.

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The US attorney accused of hounding internet activist Aaron Swartz to his death has responded by saying that her office's actions were "appropriate", and that she had only been seeking a six-month sentence in "a low-security setting" rather than the 30 years' jail that his actions might have attracted.

The family of celebrated internet activist Aaron Swartz has accused prosecutors and MIT officials of being complicit in his death, blaming the apparent suicide on the pursuit of a young man over "an alleged crime that had no victims".